A Poem on Angry Clouds

I had never seen the sky so looming and dark,

boiling clouds that rumbled and shook.

So dark and heavy I could reach up and touch them

but would not be able to bear their weight

when they invariably came crashing down

on my spindly virgin shoulders.

I could have sworn I saw the hands of God

form in those oppressive clouds

raising his fist like a warning

of all the storms that would haunt me

if I turned my head and ignored him.

But if the clouds were the most furious clouds

my wide doe eyes had ever beheld,

they were nothing compared to the hot, rising sparks inside of me

I skated across the potholes of the parking lot

The condemning raindrops bouncing off of the rays

beaming from inside of my soaring, racing heart.

God’s tears came pouring down on me

and they felt like warm bath water.

He pelted my friend’s used car with angry fists

while our laughter and squeals spewed from the car like confetti.

His tears formed puddles along the road.

I danced through them in yellow rain boots.

He bellowed at me and pounded on my windows.

I couldn’t hear him over our incessant babble;

giggles that filled the room like balloons,

colorful and shiny and floating

until they are pricked by truth’s sharp needle

or worse, slowly deflate until they are nothing more

than wrinkled piles of plastic in sad huddles on the floor.

I was drunk on the liquor of sin.

I guzzled lust like sweet champagne

and my world was warm.

I had never been so warm.

I will never be so warm as I was on the day

that the clouds loomed like angry fathers

and God’s tears flooded the parking lot.

Madelyn Bowman is an aspiring writer and artist. She spent much of her childhood moving around the country, and learned to find solace in her writing. Maddy now lives in Massachusetts and works as a writer for a local newspaper.